Re: [gentoo-user] Transferring an existing install to new disk

[Garry Smith <garry.smith@computer.org>]

Dirk Uys wrote:
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 9:35 AM, Harry Putnam <reader@newsguy.com> wrote:
>   
>> I should know how to do this but so many changes have happened
>> recently and I haven't done anything like this for a very long time.
>>
>> My desktop version of gentoo is pretty far out of date.  And I think
>> there have been enough changes that I don't even want to try to get it
>> cleaned up.
>>
>> Rather, I'd like to build up a newly installed gentoo to the point
>> where it has all the stuff I want.  But do it inside a vmware virtual
>> machine.
>>
>> I'm trying to keep my working desktop in place until such time as the
>> vmware gentoo setup is ready
>>
>> Once that install is up to speed with all my preferred apps in place.
>> And any kinks worked out...
>> Only then use it to overwrite my desktop OS.  Or reformat that disk
>> and move the vmware gentoo version to it.
>>
>> The vmware gentoo would be guest on a windows XP pro machine.
>>
>> I'd like to hear any comments concerning what problems I might run
>> into or whether the plan is likely to be a serious mess.
>>
>> Also wouldn't mind seeing a rough outline of how to make that kind of
>> move.
>>     
>
> I've thought about this myself, but I think there are some issues. The
> hardware that vmware can simulate are limited and may not match your
> actual hardware. This does not mean it's impossible, but you may need
> to set network, graphics ,etc up again once the system is transferred.
>
> Guess the steps will be pretty much the same as for transferring
> between partitions or similar machines
> - make sure all the required modules for the target system is compiled
> in the kernel.
> - Update /etc/fstab to point to the correct devices.
> - Update the grub.conf to pass the correct root. (btw, does anyone use
> anything other than grub these days?)
> - Use tar (with appropriate flags to keep permissions and symlinks in
> place) to transfer all the files
> - Install the bootloader on the target MBR
>
> I may have missed a few things, but that's everything I currently remember.
>
>
>   
Harry was asking about going between two machines. I did something 
similar recently ((http://blog.garrysmith.net/?p=62#more-62)  and used 
the following command to pass the output from tar directly to the 
destination machine over SSH:

tar -cvzpf - ./bin ./boot ./dev ./etc ./lib ./lost+found ./media ./mnt 
./opt ./proc ./root ./sbin ./sys ./usr ./var | ssh -p8889 
root@192.168.1.69 “cd /mnt/gentoo; tar -xzpf -”

Unfortunately the symbolic links all came out as 0  byte files (not sym 
links), so in the end I fell back on rsync (over SSH) which did the job.

How do you normally preserve symlinks using tar piped over SSH?

An example of the rsync command I used was:

 rsync -avpe "ssh -p 8889" /home user@destination.machine:/mnt/gentoo


The next time that I do this, I will just use rsync straight away and 
not use tar. The Gentoo Live CD has rsync (the Gentoo minimal install 
doesn't), so you should use the former (I booted both machines (one of 
them within VMWare fusion) from live the CD in order to do the copy.


cheers

Garry